Blurb:
Einar William Coates can hear his wife in the steps that creak and windows that shake against the autumn wind. He can smell her on his pillow and in the kitchen—but he can never touch her again. As his family assembles at his home in northern Maine for her funeral, Einar knows this is a fate he has earned, yet the bitterness of loss is no softer for it.
He is hardly the only Coates man to be grieving, however, as one of his sons endures the loss of his marriage and the other mourns what should have been the start of his own. When Jason and Robert assemble at their childhood home, a grudge that dates back to the origins of Robert’s mysterious limp and Jason’s days as a hockey player at the university becomes their companion during the chill of the early winter.
Yet the struggles of the Coates family only distract them from a confrontation that played out years before. Old friends and older enemies reemerge from behind the darkened woods and empty potato fields of the desolate north as convicted murderer Angus McCausland returns for a fiery reunion with Jason Coates…
This is a quiet book about a quiet corner of Maine. The Coates family is mourning after the loss of the family matriarch. How does one carry on after the loss of a life mate? However, what could have been a maudlin study of family disfunction at a time of stress is minimized by the currents beneath the quietness. Every family has things that they don’t talk about and in this the Coates family is not alone. The tensions between Jason, Robert, and Einar are brought to the surface as all of them try to cope with their own individual losses. Einar has lost his wife, and through one singularly thoughtless act, Jason’s has created problems in not only his own marriage, but also has caused his brother Robert to lose his future wife as well. The winter setting of this book is appropriate as these men have frozen their emotions out. Their love and caring for each other is evident but not expressed; emotionally they are as frozen as the weather. The shocking turn of events between Jason and Robert is only a prelude to what will irrevocably change their lives, and the lives of those around them, forever.
This is a book that will stay with the reader for a long time after its end. The imagery of fall and winter and of things ending and dying is central to this novel’s story, and sustains it to its very end. The final act of self-sacrifice is redemption for some, and a cause of lasting pain and regret for others, but it could not have happened any other way for the author to stay true to his creation.
This is a well crafted and in its own way, quite wonderful book that I genuinely enjoyed. It is thought provoking on many levels and I do recommend it.
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Fantastic review. Sounds like a precious read! And I love thought provoking books too!